On Running and Tradition

I’ve been a runner since I was 14 years old.  I joined cross country partially because my brother was on the team and partially because my mom said it would be easier if she only had to drive us one place for practices.  The only other fall sports option for girls at my high school was basketball, and, as a mediocre middle school basketball player (at best), I knew that I wasn’t interested in subjecting myself to the humiliation that would have resulted from trying out for the team.  So, I ran.

I had never been a runner before, but I’ve always been one of those people who assumes they’ll be fine when the important moments happen, even if the preparation leading up to those important moments has indicated otherwise.  I did the same thing with cross country: sure, my sporadic running during the summer had been tough, and, sure, I couldn’t manage a practice run without extensive walking.  But—meh—I would be fine whenever the races rolled around.

In my first 5K (3.1 mile) race, I clocked an impressive time, somewhere in the ballpark of 47 minutes, if I’m remembering correctly.  For those of you not quick on the mental math, this works out to over 15 minutes per mile.  In college, I was out on a date with a guy who had also been a high school runner, and after regaling him with this story, he asked me tentatively, “Not trying to be a jerk, but did you sit down to rest?”  I can remember the course vividly—probably because I was going through it so slowly that details had the chance to sink in—and as I walked past various cones and course markers, wondering when the finish line would appear, I can remember thinking, “Okay, maybe I need to try a little harder in practices.”

And so I did.  I took the advice of an upperclassman guy who told me: “Never walk.  You could be running slower than you’ve ever run before, but it doesn’t matter.  Just don’t walk.”  I pushed myself hard that year, and by the end of the season, I was awarded both the “Most Improved” award and the “Most Valuable” award.  My other three high school seasons were successful in their own rights, but nothing ever topped the feeling of that season for me—knowing I had changed so drastically within a few months through hard work and mental toughness.  I was addicted from there on out.  Running has been something I’ve done and a runner is something I’ve been ever since.

Running is an outlet for me, one to which I always return, even when I’ve taken a break from it, and it’s an activity that centers me, a ritual that provides a respite from the chaos and upheaval of everyday life.  I run to running when I feel like I can’t cope, and hearing the regular pattern of my feet hitting the ground, coupled with the in-and-out of my breathing, is a bit like meditation for me.  In my day-to-day life, I rarely stop thinking.  But when I run?  It’s the closest I get to clearing my mind.

I would be lying if I said that part of why I run isn’t also because it keeps me in the shape I like to be in.  Going out for a run tends to tell me everything I need to know about my current level of fitness.  Typically, even in my worst shape, I can still gut out a 5K.  If I can’t make it those 3.1 miles, I know that I’ve fallen pretty far.  And I don’t say that to suggest that people who can’t run 3.1 miles are woefully out of shape—that’s just a test that I use to gauge where I am at in terms of my body and my muscles and my weight.  I would guess that everyone has their own test they use, and a 5K is mine.

These are all typical reasons for sticking with running, and they are reasons I hear from other friends who run.  But there is one other reason that I personally still cling to my 20-year running habit: tradition.

As a 30-something person who is single and has no children, one of the things I’ve noticed is the change in how I view traditions, particularly holiday traditions.  The traditions we follow as children are set up by our parents, and we stick closely to those until life circumstances help us to create new ones.  Often those new traditions come from marrying into a family that has its own ways of doing the holidays or other special days, or they develop as a result of parenthood.  A challenge for me has been watching my childhood traditions fade away without feeling like I have new ones to replace them.  Once my grandma moved out of her home into assisted living and my brother’s and cousins’ families grew to such a place where it wasn’t feasible to be together for the holidays, those big days I looked forward to as a child and as a teenager lost some of their shine.  I don’t begrudge my family those choices—part of being married and having a family means making decisions about how to best spend the limited time during these busy seasons.  But I have struggled with feeling sad during the holidays because of the loss of old traditions, and this has led me to seek out ways to create new traditions for myself.

Running has given me a foundation upon which to build these traditions.  On Easter, I go to the sunrise service at my church and then I do a long morning run on my favorite trail.  Usually New Year’s Day sees me on a morning run, too, giving me time to think about all I’d like to accomplish in the next year as the cold air kisses my face.  Those are both unofficial rituals—ones I experience alone, but ones that I prioritize, nonetheless.  However, on Thanksgiving I take part in a tradition that I look forward to all year: the Detroit Turkey Trot.  It’s a huge race, so I’m certainly not alone in this early-morning endeavor, and it makes for some great people watching.  Many groups come down in Christmas-themed costumes and the spectators on the side of the road, trying to get good seats for the Thanksgiving Parade that follows the race, make the atmosphere festive and lively.  There is music and laughter and “You can do it!”.  My own anticipation of this race usually starts in mid-October.  As the fall marches on toward winter, the prospect of running a 10K (6.2 miles) keeps me running regularly, even as the weather gets cold (which I prefer to run in, anyways), and on the actual day, I revel in knowing that I can eat whatever I want later because I’ve put in 6.2 miles before 9:00am.

The Turkey Trot has given me stories to tell—like the time I left my car key hanging on the back of a bathroom door in an out-of-the-way Detroit parking garage where, every year, I make a pit stop before going to the starting line.  The gun had gone off and I had just crossed the starting line when I realized my key wasn’t tied to my shoe, as it usually is.  I had a moment where the competitive side of me said from one shoulder: “It will still be there once you finish…no one knows about that bathroom.”  The practical side of me was having none of that, because from the other shoulder, I heard, “Karen Carson…this is your car…your actual car!  Go get your key!”.  I left the race, promising the race officials I would re-enter where I had exited, and ran to that parking garage bathroom, hoping my key would still be there.  It was—and I dutifully re-entered the race where I had exited, finishing with a time that satisfied my competitive side.

There’s the story about how I found that secret bathroom in the first place.  Suffice it to say, I learned my lesson about not eating cabbage soup the night before a race.  I firmly believe God answered my “I need a bathroom NOW” prayer, and hopefully that’s the last time I ever have to make a “when I poop my pants, here’s what I’ll do next” plan.  (And in case you’re concerned—it wasn’t a plan I had to implement.  Phew.)

One year, I got up and ran those 6.2 miles after spending the previous day in transit from England to Detroit following the wedding of one of my best college friends.  On Thanksgiving Eve, I took a taxi from my hotel in Norwich, England to the local train station; a train from that small English town into London; London’s Tube from King’s Cross to Heathrow Airport; a plane from London Heathrow to Chicago O’Hare; and my own car from O’Hare to my home in Detroit.  It was an obscene number of travel miles in a day—and I can remember posting on Facebook that early Thanksgiving morning: “What’s 6.2 miles more when you’ve traveled 4390.8 the day before?”  Jet lag hadn’t taken me quite yet, and I ran a solid race only to crash HARD later that day.

Running every Thanksgiving morning has meant connecting with friends.  Sometimes friends have also been running in the race or I’ve randomly encountered people I know while downtown.  Standing in the chute waiting to start, I’ve had pleasant chats with other people who are there doing the same thing I am—following tradition.  Last year, these two guys I had been talking with decided we should all run together, something I pretended to go along with to be polite, quickly losing them on the course so I could just run my race.  I am glad to be surrounded by so many other runners, but it’s the tradition with myself that gets me out of bed every year.

I wonder if other adults have traditions with themselves.  Not just things they do with their significant others or children, although those are important, but specific activities they do with and for themselves.  Events they look forward to every year.  Goings-on they anticipate in the same way they anticipated their childhood traditions.  I know that, for me, having traditions with myself has helped remind me that not all of adulthood has to be full of functioning.  It’s so easy to get caught up in the To-Do’s of life and, especially when life gets crazy (like at the holidays), to forget to make time for those things that make us happy for no reason other than “I do this every year.”  Even running—something that fills a quota or achieves a goal for many adults—can be something that is enjoyable for its own sake (something I plan to write more about this week).

I don’t run on Thanksgiving because it helps me maintain my weight or because I need to hit my quota of miles for that week.  I run on Thanksgiving because I want to and because the anticipation of this tradition is something that makes me excited about the life I’ve built for myself.  Perhaps that sounds dramatic, but I believe that’s what traditions do—they become building blocks for our lives and they are something we can depend on, even when things seem less-than-steady.

What are the traditions that anchor your world?  What traditions will you start (or continue) with yourself?  Think of me as I’m gutting out all 6.2 miles of my favorite tradition on Thursday.  I haven’t trained nearly as much as I would have liked and it probably won’t be my best time ever—but that isn’t the point of the tradition, is it?